Rx Importation Legislation Gains Bipartisan Senate Support?

Ken Rankin

Published Online: Friday, April 1, 2005

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Senate leaders from both sides of
the political aisle are pushing new legislation
that they say will lower prescription
drug costs hundreds of
billions of dollars by allowing pharmaceutical
imports from Canada and other
countries where drug prices are controlled.

On the Republican side, Sen David
Vitter (R, La), is sponsoring a bill to
permit the importation of prescription
medicines from Canada and other
countries, provided that the FDA
approves the drugs and the facilities
where they are manufactured.

The bill would exclude importation of
"pharmaceutical narcotics"and require
that all prescription medicines imported
to the United States be shipped using
"counterfeit-resistant technologies."

Vitter told the Senate that his proposed
new Pharmaceutical Market
Access Act of 2005 would "reverse
the perverse economics of the American
pharmaceutical market"and
help US consumers save "at least
$635 billion of their own money."

Democrats, meanwhile, are backing
an Rx import bill of their own. Their
proposed new "Affordable Health Care
Act"would reduce US "health costs
substantially by making FDA-approved
drugs available at the same fair prices
available to Canadians and Europeans,
rather than the inflated prices charged
to US patients,"Sen Edward Kennedy
(D, Mass) told Congress.

Calling prescription drug costs "out
of control,"Kennedy said that the proposed
legislation is necessary because
"too many patients are cutting the pills
their doctors prescribe in half or going
without them altogether, because they
can't afford the drugs they need to
treat or prevent disease."